[10][11][12][13] Vardhan as the State Minister of Health in 1994 oversaw the implementation of the pilot project of the Pulse Polio Programme which involved the mass immunisation of 1 million children up to the age of 3 in Delhi.

[20] Vardhan contested the Chandni Chowk seat in Delhi where he defeated the incumbent Union Minister of Law and Justice, Kapil Sibal of the Indian National Congress.

[24] Vardhan again contested the Chandni Chowk seat in Delhi where he defeated Congress candidate Jai Parkash Aggarwal by a margin of 2,28,145 votes.

In February 2021, he endorsed an unproven "herbal cure" for COVID-19 devised by a company run by yoga guru Ramdev, prompting criticism from health experts.

[3] Vardhan as a cabinet minister in Narendra Modi government, declared reservation for academic calendar 2020–2021 in MBBS and BDS colleges for the children of COVID-19 workers who died during COVID-19 pandemic in India.

[29][clarification needed] As a part of Cabinet Reshuffle on 7 July 2021, Harshvardhan resigned from his post of Union Health Minister after holding its two years of office.

[31][32][33] In 2019, after the Health Effects Institute released a scientific report estimating 1.2 million annual deaths in India due to air pollution, Vardhan denied the results, arguing that this report was intended to create panic[34] In 2021, Indian Medical Association (IMA), the largest association of doctors in India, issued a statement which it objected to Vardhan who was endorsing Coronil, a product of Patanjali Ayurved.

[36] In 2023, a legislator from ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made Islamophobic remarks and used communal slurs against a Muslim MP inside the parliament.

During a Thursday night debate on 22 September 2023 on the success of India's historic moon mission, BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri called Kunwar Danish Ali of the opposition Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) a "terrorist" and a "pimp" among other anti-Islamic slurs.